10 June 2016: I have learned that what I’ve been identifying as a duck below is actually a Greater White-fronted goose. This explains some inconsistencies I noted in how it behaved. We live and learn.

I went for a walk at Stone Mountain Friday, 25 March and took some video of two pairs of geese and one duck, near the riverboat ride. Somewhere on the water, I could hear what sounded like a large gaggle of geese, but could only see a few landing in the water. The geese I encountered didn’t seem to take them into account. I’ve noted other times when I’ve seen geese at Stone Mountain, that they often respond to the sound of other geese by turning their heads in the direction of the sound, or answering with honks of their own, but these rarely did.

Canadian geese are fairly common at the park throughout the year. They’ve apparently opted to stay here rather than fly back north, if, in fact, they came from there. The ones at Stone Mountain are most likely several generations removed from those who migrated.

Ducks are also a fairly common site. This one was alone, and was just hanging out near the edge of the lake. I thought it would try to get into the water, especially after I showed up, but it didn’t. It didn’t just stick around for the video, but stayed long enough for me to walk away and come back to take some photos.

Other ducks were flying around, landing in the water nearby but none came close to where this one was hanging out.

It’s perhaps a testament to their acclimation to humans that neither the duck nor the geese seemed to pay me much attention. My following them didn’t seem to hurry the geese very much, and I was nearly two feet away from the duck while taking the video and some photos.